"Motivation", aka inspiration, challenging, doing your job.
These are all terms so much associated with leadership.
We are constantly told a good leader "motivates" his/her followers or underlings. That may be. But there are many forms of motivation.
The good: Recognition in the form of awards or promotions, extra pay or other benefits, time off etc.
The bad: yelling and screaming, name calling, attempts at public humiliation, threatening to fire/dismiss you etc.
All of these do work to one extent or another. I'll leave it up to others to debate which is the better way to go.
But when all is said and done you can only motivate a person so far. The rest has to come from with in them self.
And that's the kicker.
How do you "motivate" someone to act professionally or at least maturely if they don't have it in them already? I don't see how. I've been management over people and the lack of self motivation is definitely there. I don't mean just being lazy or not caring. I mean people who see no reason to just do what they know has to be done.
In the work place especially, no matter what brilliant plan to energize and motivate the workforce at some point the people involved have to come on board and do their part. In private organizations it can be even harder when people aren't being paid or other tangible incentives to just attend meetings.
But you just can't instill a sense of motivation in someone if they don't have it already. And especially can't instill it when things are going tough. If their motivation is lacking in good times it certainly won't come through in bad times.
You can lead a horse to water but….
These are all terms so much associated with leadership.
We are constantly told a good leader "motivates" his/her followers or underlings. That may be. But there are many forms of motivation.
The good: Recognition in the form of awards or promotions, extra pay or other benefits, time off etc.
The bad: yelling and screaming, name calling, attempts at public humiliation, threatening to fire/dismiss you etc.
All of these do work to one extent or another. I'll leave it up to others to debate which is the better way to go.
But when all is said and done you can only motivate a person so far. The rest has to come from with in them self.
And that's the kicker.
How do you "motivate" someone to act professionally or at least maturely if they don't have it in them already? I don't see how. I've been management over people and the lack of self motivation is definitely there. I don't mean just being lazy or not caring. I mean people who see no reason to just do what they know has to be done.
In the work place especially, no matter what brilliant plan to energize and motivate the workforce at some point the people involved have to come on board and do their part. In private organizations it can be even harder when people aren't being paid or other tangible incentives to just attend meetings.
But you just can't instill a sense of motivation in someone if they don't have it already. And especially can't instill it when things are going tough. If their motivation is lacking in good times it certainly won't come through in bad times.
You can lead a horse to water but….
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